Due to a lack of uniformity in the maturity of the grapes due to a long flowering and cold spring, we chose to utilize the densimetric sorting machine. This helped remove the less than ripe fruit.

The quality of the sorted fruit was perfect. The line of 100 air jets is equivalent to a team of 100 sorters. However, the use of these new machines made it necessary to add a number of conveyor belts to carry the harvest from one to another.

For the past 2 years we’ve experienced earlier than normal harvests. This year we had to be patient and return to a more regular time frame for the harvest. The botrytis took its time arriving. But when it arrived, it was beautiful and on very ripe fruit.

Our new optic sorting table worked perfectly! The quality of the sorting was very good. Moreover, because this sorting is very fast and we need only a few people to make it work, we were able to concentrate more of our attention on the wine making.

As per today, this is a great vintage in terms of analyses (tannins, anthocianes and alcohol), still it’s too early to say exactly how great, but anyway it is very promising. We hold a second trilogy 2008, 2009 and 2010, comparable with 1988, 1989, 1990.

The 2010 Bordeaux harvest for the red wines at Chateau Haut Brion began September 8.…